8 /10 1 Votes
Originally published 1983 | 4/5 Goodreads | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Works by John Kenneth Galbraith The Culture of Contentment, Economics and the Public Pu, The Nature of Mass Poverty, American Capitalism, The New Industrial State | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Anatomy of Power is a 1983 book by Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith. It sought to classify three types of power: compensatory power in which submission is bought, condign power in which submission is won by making the alternative sufficiently painful, and conditioned power in which submission is gained by persuasion. It further divided power by source: power either stems from personality or leadership, property or wealth, or organisation.
The book goes on to detail a brief history of the use of power, noting the broad arc of history in moving away from condign and towards compensatory and then conditioned power, and from personality and property towards organisation. Finally, it details what Galbraith views as the main sources of power in the modern world: government, the military, religion and the press.